New menu items
The goal is to provide sustainable ingredients that support California
agriculture while offering students fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables. Items include:
Breakfast – Waffle with eggs and hash browns, turkey bacon breakfast burrito,
mango parfait, egg bites with hash browns, blueberry muffin top, breakfast taco,
bean and cheese burrito.
Lunch – Beef quesadilla, hummus plate, bacon cheeseburger, Baja fish tacos.
Student-developed menu – Ava’s Avocado Salad and Hot Honey Chicken Bowl with
Fried Rice.
San Diego)
When students in the Mission Bay Cluster returned to Pacific Beach campuses on Aug.10, they were greeted by new choices for breakfast and lunch.
Over the summer, the district’s Sandi Coast Cafe introduced a new menu of nutritious, student-inspired entrées while preparing to serve more than 17 million meals during the 2026–27 school year.
The expanded menu provides students with meals to support learning, wellness and academic achievement, according to a statement from the San Diego Unified School District.
Pacific Beach Middle School seventh-grader Kolton Hughes likes the changes. “When kids have a better lunch they will learn better in the afternoon,” he said.
“We serve approximately 75-90 breakfasts and 250-300 lunches each day,” said Robin Lujan, the PBMS cafeteria manager. “Popular breakfast items are pancakes and mini waffles. Popular lunch items include chicken tenders with onion rings and hot dogs with whole grain honey BBQ chips.”
San Diego Unified has embraced a shift in food and nutrition services during the past five years.
“Five years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a landmark piece of legislation into law, making California the first state in the nation to implement a universal free school meal program for all public-school students,” said Leslie Luna, marketing coordinator for the district’s Food and Nutrition Services.
“In 2024, San Diego Unified’s school lunch program was rebranded as ‘Sandi Coast Cafe’ with a commitment to source, prepare and serve tasty, nutritious meals that students enjoy and want to eat, staff takes pride in, parents trust to nourish their children, educators value to fuel their learners and our community celebrates for its excellence,” Luna said.
Aurora Sesenbach, a sixth grader at Pacific Beach Middle, is enjoying the food options.
“We moved here last summer from Minnesota. I love the meals at PBMS. The food is so much better here than at my previous school,” Aurora said.
But students aren’t just enjoying new menus — they’re helping create them. Two student-developed recipes are featured in cafeterias across the district, showcasing their creativity. The new student-inspired entrées were developed in response to feedback from the district’s nutrition survey.
The Hot Honey Chicken Bowl with Fried Rice, a brand-new entrée developed by culinary students at Morse High School, is offered on secondary menus.
Joining it is Ava’s Avocado Salad, created by a Correia Middle School student during a previous student recipe contest. The recipe has been brought back from the archives and refreshed for this school year.
“Food brings people together, and we want every student to feel cared for when they join us for a meal,” said Alicia Pitrone Hauser, executive director of Food and Nutrition Services for the district.
The district, as well as each school, publishes a weekly menu. Sandi Coast Cafe serves approximately 95,000 meals daily across 205 schools. The breakdown is 35,000 breakfasts, 51,000 lunches, and 9,000 suppers during the school year.
Schools serve suppers? Yes. A supper program is offered in conjunction with the PrimeTime Program (TK-8).
The PrimeTime Program provides an engaging environment where students can strengthen their academic skills and participate in enrichment activities in art, science, music and athletics, while improving social skills.
Luna outlined the funding, which includes a blend of state and federal dollars, for the ambitious food and nutrition program.
California’s Universal Meals Program builds on the federal National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program. It rests, she said, on three pillars, a state mandate requiring districts to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students; a requirement that high-poverty schools participate in a federal provision (the Community Eligibility Provision) and state reimbursement funding allocated by the Legislature to cover the program’s cost.
The supper program is funded by the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program.
